'Framing the West: The Survey Photographs of Timothy O'Sullivan' is available from Yale University Press.

The 19th-century photographs of William Henry Jackson, A.J. Russsell and Carleton Watkins have been more widely seen, and they probably have had more infuence on shaping our views of the region. But Eric Paddock, curator of photographer at the Denver Art Museum, believes O’Sullivan’s images more honestly reveal the region’s soul.

“On some level, O’Sullivan’s pictures offer an alternate way of seeing the American West,” Paddock said, “because O’Sullivan’s pictures are not picturesque. They’re not idealized. My opinion, and I think this an opinion some other people my share, is that O’Sullivan’s photographs ring a little more true with people who have actually dwelt in the Western landscape.”

An exhibition titled, “Framing the West: The Survey Photographs of Timothy O’Sullivan,” is on view through May 9 at the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, D.C. According to Paddock, it contains the largest assembly of the photographer’s images since the Centennial Exposition in Philhadelphia in 1876.